Grigori’s thick head cocked slightly, and one hand came up to scratch his skull, the red gemstone in his ring flashing. “No,” he said simply, and that was that.

“No?” I repeated, growing more irate by the second.

“You hard of hearing, Detective? I said no. Now you go away.”

“No.” Heat of a different kind surged through my limbs, gathering in my chest. “After all the bullshit you’ve pulled. Supplying ash. Getting people hooked to the point where they can’t function without it? Working with Mynogan to bring darkness to the city—”

A small grin played on his face. “Now why you think I had anything to do with that?”

“Because I got your fucking flowers. I know you had something to do with it, you sonofabit—”

The guard’s blade was at my throat before I could finish the word. Missy the masseuse stilled, her eyes widening. And Grigori Tennin? He just watched me, eyed me so closely that I felt like he could see the angry blood racing through my veins and the chaotic power coiling and screaming for release. I wanted to swallow, but didn’t dare.

Another jinn entered, took stock of the situation, shrugged, and then walked to Tennin and whispered in his ear. The hint of victory in his eyes wasn’t missed. After the jinn left, he turned his attention back to me and motioned to the guard to remove her blade.

“I change my mind. You can see the Storyteller.”

“Just like that?”

He shrugged. “Yes, Charlie Madigan. Just like that.” He laid his head back down, dismissing me.

When I didn’t move, the guard shoved me toward the curtain, knocking me out of my frozen fury. I nearly tripped, but made it out of the chamber without falling on my face or losing control of my powers—as much as I’d wanted to. My anger was slowly tempered by confusion as I was led through a maze of tunnels and chambers. Why had he changed his mind so suddenly?

We came to another curtained chamber. The guard pulled the frayed material back and I ducked inside, finding myself in a small, low-ceilinged chamber that smelled like smoke, onions, and chili. A small fire burned in a pit in the center of the room, releasing sparks that floated to the ceiling and eventually got sucked into the ventilation shaft. A pallet lay against one stone wall, and a small writing table against another. Shadows licked and danced on the earthen walls.

An aged jinn female stooped over the fire pit, her back to us. With jerky movements, she shoved at the fire with a stick, creating several loud pops and sending an eruption of sparks into the air. The guard dropped the curtain and stayed outside of the chamber, leaving me alone in the room with the old Storyteller.

“Come, come. Come closer,” she said, not turning around.

Her long, gray braids were flecked with dirt and pencil shavings, the ends tied off with strips of beaded leather. She wore a brand-new, puffy white ski jacket and a long, stained skirt that had seen better days.

I came around her left side and took up space across the fire pit. There was a pot hanging in the center, the source of the chili smell. “You want a story, eh?” She lifted her eyes, one violet, the other glazed over in blindness. She sighed, her face sinking back into the deep frown lines that curved around her mouth and eyes. “They all wants a story from Vendelan Grist. None comes to see me otherwise.” Her head shook in disappointment. “Very well. Sit, sit.” She motioned with the glowing end of her stick to the low stones set around the pit, her one good eye gleaming with intelligence. “Once I was this great warrior, ya know? But that is more story, for later times. So what is it? What you want? I haven’t got all day, ya know.”

I pulled a fifty-dollar bill from my pocket and handed it to her as I sat down on a low stone, pulling my knees closer to my chest. “The story of Solomon,” I said, slipping my bangs behind my ears and settling in.

“Ah.” She nodded in approval, stuffing the bill into her coat. “That’s a good one, yes. The great king himself. The half-breed. Born of the jinn High Chief and a human mother, much like our Sian.” She laughed, poking the fire again and making it crackle. “But in those days, he was a god to the jinn. Male of two worlds, ya know? A king who wanted to rule the land, to break the yoke of the nobles, and bring the jinn to greatness.”

“I thought he captured the jinn, used them as his slaves, commanded them.”

Her white brow lifted and her lips thinned in a scolding manner. “Who tells this story?”

I held up my hands. “Sorry.”

She began all over again, and I had the feeling we were going to be here awhile as she started in on who begat whom. I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes later, Solomon was finally begat by the jinn High Chief, Malek Murr, and a human woman, Bathsheba, and was raised as a son of David and a prince of Israel. The story, once again, drove home the notion of truths lost in legends, and the fact that the off-worlders had involved themselves in our civilization for untold millennia.

The story continued with Solomon’s childhood with his half brothers, his young adult life, and, through the efforts of his mother and the prophet Nathan, his rise to the throne while David was still alive. He was cunning, ruthless, and ambitious, with a lust for magic and power. He reorganized the kingdom of Israel into twelve tribes and built the temple of Solomon.

It was an hour into Vendelan’s story that Solomon learned of the First Ones from a jinn Storyteller.

“Since the Great War in Charbydon, when the nobles comes into our land, and takes control of the tribes, makes us bodyguards and servants, many jinn tribes they leave, they make home in the human world. But the nobles, they refused the jinn to stay there, they don’t want Malek Murr to raise an army against them. Solomon reacted, ya know? So angry, he was, when the nobles call the jinn back to Charbydon. He learns of the First Ones. He sees, ya know, opportunity. Thinks that with this old knowledge of these great beings that he will set free the jinn, return his sire to the throne to rule over Charbydon, send things back to the way they was before the nobles come. ’Cause the nobles never belonged in our land to begin with, you see.” She waved her hand impatiently. “Everybody knows this. Solomon, he sets out to uncover this knowledge of the ancients. He makes a cult of powerful jinn and human priests. Some says he succeeds in finding this knowledge. Some says he fails. In the end, he dies anyways. The jinn returns to Charbydon under the nobles’ rule, and Solomon is dead.

“But”—her finger shot in the air—“he did great things. It is said he found a star, a star that shone its brightest at dawn. That he forged a ring of great powers to one day give this star life. Solomon’s ring, ya know? But who can tell.” She shrugged and laughed gleefully, her one eye going bright. “They just stories, right?”

“The star,” I said, sitting straight. “He found the star?”

“Oh, yes. And he worshipped it, you see, for the star was a First One. So he makes this new religion. And calls himself the Son of Dawn. They still believe, ya know.”

“Who believes?”

“The Sons of Dawn. Oh, they still around. Trust me. New members, sure, but still around.”

“What do they believe, Vendelan?”

She leaned forward. “What all us jinn already know and everybody else forgets. The Char nobles and the Elysian Adonai are from the same stock. All were once Adonai. They forget, you see. So much time has passed. Ancient time. But we know. We remember. The nobles, they ruled in Elysia first, but they were no good. No good, you see, so they were cast out into Charbydon. Into our land. So long ago,” she sighed, “no one remembers. Sons of Dawn want nobles to remember, you see, to rise up and take back Elysia for their own. And the star is their proof, you see. Not myth, but truth. She is ancestor.”